CASE STUDY CASE STUDY JULY

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1 CASE STUDY CASE STUDY JULY

2 ALLOCATE SOFTWARE CONTENTS 1. ABOUT THE CLIENT 3 2. FUTURE PROCESSING S ROLE 4 3. RESULTS OF THE PARTNERSHIP 4 ABOUT THE CLIENT Established in 1991, Allocate Software is focused on helping their customers manage large, multi-skilled workforces in complex, fast changing environments. 4. BUSINESS PROBLEM THAT WAS SOLVED 5 5. WORKING IN SCRUM 6 The company sets exceptionally high standards and delivers world -class support and service, building strong, long-term relationships with their customers, based on trust and commitment public & private sector organisations globally choose Allocate for their market expertise and proven technology. Our cooperation started with Zircadian - a company providing software and services for managing doctors in the UK. However, Zircadian was bought by Allocate and is now a part of the Allocate Software HealthSuite family of workforce, patient flow and governance solutions. 2

3 FUTURE PROCESSING S ROLE It all started in 2011 when Zircadian wanted to develop and launch a new module for one of their products. Until then, the company was always developing their software in-house. However, since their own team was busy, rather than delay product launch, Zircadian decided to look for an outsourcing partner. Therefore, they chose to cooperate with Future Processing, based on our experience, partnership approach and feedback from existing customers. We started to work on eroster application for doctors time management, integrated with Outlook. Its most important functions are planning, time settlement and reports for managers. RESULTS OF THE PARTNERSHIP Future Processing teams work on few projects for Allocate simultaneously. One of the biggest projects we work on is E360 web application, which helps to manage periodic assessment of doctors. Future Processing provided a dedicated team responsible for the development process. However, before the development started, we had to design the architecture of the solution from the very beginning. We had to quickly acquire the domain knowledge, which enabled us to figure out how end users may use the program. We were also responsible for making the assessment surveys anonymous. However, in the meantime, Zircadian was bought by Allocate Software that had their own software. After the acquisition, Future Processing continued to work with the new owners. Based on their positive experiences from the first project, Allocate decided to entrust us the outsourcing of new ones. We ve equipped the software in modules allowing, among others, to: create survey questions create different surveys for colleagues and patients feedback assign different surveys to different trusts and departments invite co-workers generate and print reports generate unique codes to fill in the online survey send various kinds of s, like invitations to colleagues, reminders to colleagues etc. At the end of July 2014 there were 4,144 evaluated doctors and 7,497 surveys completed in E360 system. During the development process the quality assurance aspect of the project was almost fully managed by Future Processing. This enabled us to fix medium and low level issues. However, using our extensive experience of software development, we provided the Client with improvement suggestions, which have been applied to the architecture. During the project development, Zircadian introduced new management tools that helped the team to acquire new managerial skills. What is more, we were also responsible for taking over the development of software to manage crew on board. Its primary role is checking whether the crew has all the necessary, 3

4 valid documents, like visas or vaccines. It also lists harbours and the number of crew members that should be present on the deck at each harbour. What s more, the software manages and monitors money flow on the ship. Future Processing also added the functionality of what to do in a crisis situation. Another project we worked on was Cloud Connect (CC). The need arose because the free texting service used throughout the UK s NHS called NHS Mail was being discontinued. Allocate Software products used this service to send text messages to nurses informing them of available additional shifts they could work within their hospital. BUSINESS PROBLEM THAT WAS SOLVED Due to entrusting software development outsourcing to Future Processing, Allocate managed to achieve significant cost-savings, compared to the UK, not losing on quality. To ensure this service Could continue, Allocate decided to develop its own texting service, based in the cloud so that all of Allocate s software products could use it, and asked Future Processing to help. Architects for Allocate and Future Processing held a workshop at the beginning of the project to design the solution. It was then estimated and developed using a very collaborative process which ensured the product was delivered on time to a very high level of quality. The product was launched successfully to all UK trusts before the old service had been discontinued. Our cooperation resulted in a much shorter time to market and gave the Client more flexibility in resource allocation. Thanks to E360, the evaluation process and creating surveys are much easier. Thanks to CC, it is possible to, among others: determine and limit the amount of messages available for the client have many clients with unique phone numbers integrate with two message providers collect statistics send notifications when limits end The first release took place at the beginning of 2015 and it is said that about 100 hospitals will use it, sending 12 mln text messages a year. Moreover, our team tested applications for Allocate s Swedish team. The scope of the project was to do performance and stability tests and prepare recommendations based on these findings. The activities conducted during the course of the project resulted in clear information about maximum server load and responsiveness of the system, based on server parameters. After that, the application has been profiled to identify performance bottlenecks. This allowed our Client to focus their development activities on delivering better performance and overall user experience to end users. It also helped to provide customers with detailed hardware requirements based on expected application usage. 4

5 WORKING IN SCRUM Since the very beginning we have worked according to SCRUM and stressed the importance of daily communication. The project helped demonstrate to the Client a template for successful, multi-location SCRUM development. To foster open communication, which is a keystone to Agile implementation, both sides constantly stay in touch for technical and management issues. That s why, the development teams and the Scrum Master are in Poland and work closely with the Product Owner (PO) on the Client s side. This kind of solution enabled us to develop a strong relationship with Allocate and proved to be an effective way of working, even when several Future Processing teams carried out a number of projects for Allocate. As it is customary with Agile methodologies, the development team in Poland held a daily stand-up meeting to talk about the project s development. This solution saved a lot of time, yet ensured that all issues were discussed as they happened. Since neither the availability of the PO nor communication is a problem, the cooperation is very efficient. Allocate gives us some flexibility in terms of optimal technical solutions that we use, which in turn means that the team is constantly expanding, and the systems we create are of very good quality. SCRUM process OWNER SPRINT OWNER BACKLOG SPRINT BACKLOG PRIMARY TECHNOLOGIES USED: u u.net 4.5 Visual Studio 2013 ASP.NET MVC 4 SQL Server 2008 Web GIT Entity Framework 6 Team Foundation Server CAN WE HELP YOU SOLVE YOUR BUSINESS PROBLEM? CONTACT US TO FIND OUT. 5

6 CONTACT US: Future Processing ul. Bojkowska 37A Gliwice POLAND